Here's the entire 30 Day Blog Challenge list.

I'm slowly, very slowly, getting through this list (like it's taking me months!).  If you want to join me, let me know and I'll post a link to your blog.

Day 1: List 10 random facts about yourself.

Day 2: Describe 3 legitimate fears you have and describe how they became fears.

Day 3: What is the greatest amount of physical pain you have ever endured?

Day 4: List 5 things you would tell your 16 year-old self if you could.

Day 5: What are the 5 things that make you happiest right now?

Day 6: What is the hardest thing you have ever experienced?

Day 7: What is your dream job, and why?

Day 8: What are 3 passions you have?

Day 9: What defines you?

Day 10: Describe your most embarrassing moment.

Day 11: Describe a few of your pet peeves.

Day 12: Describe a typical day in your life.

Day 13: Describe 5 weaknesses you have.

Day 14: Describe 5 strengths you have.

Day 15: If you were an animal, what would you be and why?

Day 16: What are your 5 greatest accomplishments?

Day 17: What is the thing you most wish you were great at?

Day 18: What is the most difficult thing you have had to forgive?

Day 19: If you could live anywhere, where would it be and why?

Day 20: Describe 3 significant memories from your childhood.

Day 21: If you could have 1 superpower, what would it be and what would be the first thing you did with it?

Day 22: Where do you see yourself in 5 years? 10 years? 15 years?

Day 23: List your top 3 hobbies and why you love them.

Day 24: Describe your first job.

Day 25: If you could have dinner with anyone in history, who would it be and what would you eat?

Day 26: What popular notion do you think the world has wrong?

Day 27: What is your favorite part of your body and why?

Day 28: What is your love language?

Day 29: What were your three favorite toys/games as a child?

Day 30: List 5 things you would hope to be remembered for.

via Can I Get Another Bottle of Whine with my morning quiet time?: 30 Day Blog Challenge.

Rag dolls, plastic dolls, porcelain dolls... there are dolls made out of so many different materials. Then there are Barbie dolls and baby dolls and show dolls who are dressed up but never played with. Then there are dolls by brand, some doll collections are all about the company who makes the doll. Most doll collections are vintage dolls. An older doll, not so easily found has more commercial value.The easiest thing about doll collecting is to decide which dolls to collect. You just collect the dolls you want to keep. The dolls which have personal appeal to you.

Where to Find Dolls

Retail stores are not the best, or the only source, for finding the dolls you want to collect.

Look online at sites from other doll collectors. Online auctions and shops like eBay.

Garage sales, thrift stores, flea markets, antique stores, doll shops and doll hospitals. Go to craft shows. Look at museums too.

Talk to friends and family, ask around.

Identifying and Valuing a Doll

The first value to put on a doll is your own personal value of the doll. It's sentimental value to you.

Beyond the personal value you can find the commercial value with guides written by doll collectors who evaluate the worth of the dolls based on their re-sale value, their rarity and the condition they are in.

Search online auctions, retail shops and sites from doll appraisers for the market value of your doll. See what people are currently paying for the same doll you have, in the same condition as your doll.

There are guide books written and updated each year which will give you a price guide based on the value doll collectors put on each doll. This is only an estimate really. The value of a doll can go up or down depending on what someone is actually willing to pay versus what the book says the doll is worth.

Also, a doll may be worth more to you, personally. Someone may offer to pay a price from the guide book or the selling price on eBay but that may not be how you feel about it yourself.

Protect, Repair and Preserve your Dolls

If you collect dolls you will need to know about doll repair, doll preservation and doll conservation. Light, dryness, humidity and storage and display of the dolls are important for maintaining them. Even if your dolls are displayed behind glass and never touched they will still need to be taken out and given a light cleaning now and then.

Avoid natural or fluorescent light. Natural light will fade the dolls clothes. Fluorescent light can change the colour of the doll hair and/ or skin.

Avoid extremes of hot and cold temperatures. Most dolls are made of materials which can degrade in the heat or begin to crack in the cold or even cooler temperatures.

It's good to keep the dolls in glass cabinets but not in air-tight plastic. Any least moisture inside the plastic will cause mould and mildew to grow.

If you use paper or cardboard to store the dolls make sure it is acid-free, just like they use for scrapbook making.

Keep pets, bugs, dust away from the dolls. Not smoking either. Those should be pretty obvious really.

Cabin fever is an old phrase for people who would be trapped in their cabins during the winter months. Have you ever noticed a mystery door on the second level of an old house and wondered what a door was doing up there with no stairs or any other way to exit from the door to the ground outside? Then you've seen the winter escape door which was built into older homes when winters were harsh, far more than they are now. Snow would build up with snowfall and blowing drifts until people couldn't get out of their homes from the regular ground floor door. They could use that second floor door then. Step out with their snowshoes and avoid being trapped inside their own home.

It was when they couldn't get out, when they had nothing to do but wait for winter to thaw, that cabin fever came along. The night came early and the day started late. That gave them a lot of hours of darkness. Light was expensive. Cabins didn't have a lot of windows in the days of early settlers. If they have fuel for lamps or candles they had to be conserved to last all winter. It was also frigidly cold so everyone kept close together to share heat, days and nights too. That meant close, cramped quarters and a lot of time on their hands.

Can you imagine living like that? How restless you would become? How depressed over the length of winter and the hours of darkness? If it weren't so cold you could go off by yourself but everyone would be huddled around the source of heat. Sometimes they would have all the farm animals in the cabin with them in order to keep them through the winter. No wonder they would feel desperate to escape. My Grandparents told me some people did go crazy. Some of them needed to be outside so badly they died from exposure to the elements.

Modern Cabin Fever

Cabin fever didn't end with the early settlers. People can get the feeling of cabin fever in the summer when they stay indoors with the air conditioning on. People can be camping and living in a small tent during a few days of rain and have cabin fever. People who become afraid to leave their home for all kinds of reasons can be house bound and have cabin fever at the same time.

What do to About Cabin Fever

If you can get out at all, do it! Even if it means sweltering in the heat, getting soaked in the rain, freezing in the snow or having to talk to your neighbour - get outdoors for at least a few minutes. It will make a difference. Look around while you are out there. Kick some snow, pick a couple of flowers, splash the rain and rescue a worm from the sidewalk. Do something with your moments of freedom so you can go back to indoors feeling you took some kind of action.

If you have fellow cabin fever sufferers don't all commiserate, play a game. Drag out the board games no one has looked at in awhile. If you have limited supplies use pen and paper to play hangman. Start a jigsaw puzzle. Get out a deck of cards. Play I Spy even, you don't need anything extra for that.

Create your own TV show. Even if you are alone you can interview the four walls and everything in between. Talking to yourself is better than listening to the silence and feeling trapped inside of it. Break the silence - at least you know you have a captive audience who can really appreciate your sense of humour.

Relax. Get into a good book. Try yoga or something else you like to do to unwind. Spend the time pampering yourself with a hot bath, bring a book and spend as long as you want in there. If it's hot, bring a fan to sit on the floor and blow the air around from the doorway. The radio can sit on the counter. Just keep electrical things safely away from the water.

Exercise. Jumping jacks, twiddling your fingers and toes, whatever sort of exercise you can enjoy inside the house will work.

Go through cookbooks and find a great dinner to make with whatever you have available. Or, go out and grab what you need. This isn't a great time to over eat unless you are able to be active inside the house.

Start a new hobby or take up one you used to enjoy. Teach yourself to crochet or knit for example.Finally read the instruction book that came along with that new camera. Repair things you haven't had time to get around to doing in the house.

Sleep. It's free and pretty easy to do when you just sit there awhile.

Don't isolate yourself. Pick up the phone and find someone else home and fighting cabin fever. Send out a few emails, check Facebook and Twitter and see who you can find. Invite friends over.

If you are stuck indoors with people and you need to get out from under everyone bury your nose in a book, write in a journal or listen to movies or music which everyone can enjoy without having to talk to each other.

If you have the winter blahs, SAD (seasonal affective disorder), turn on some extra lights. The extra hours of darkness in winter can make you feel like you're living in a cave. So brighten things up. Even open up a couple of windows to let in some fresh air for a few minutes.

Don't overdose on the news. You can be sure they will be talking about how bad the weather is, you really don't need to hear more of that from someone else.

People (myself included) have a fascination with the end of the world. Maybe it's based on fear. We grew up during the Cold War (some of us). Always there has been war, or the threat of war, hanging over us. School teachers bring it up in current events. Newspapers print about the latest fighting news. It's all around us. No wonder we can't get it out of our minds. No wonder we are curious about what will happen afterwards, to the people left here. What will happen to our planet, our civilization, our governments and our businesses? Will our empire Earth still be around once everything really does hit the fan?

I'd like to know. Of course, I don't expect to live long enough to see it. So, I like to see what other people think about it and see as possibilities. Often the possibilities are on the grim side. But, there is a fascination with death, destruction and violence.

Overcome Fear of Doomsday Predictions

This year the Mayans are the predictors of doom. On December 21st, this year, the Mayans predicted a major catastrophe, an end of the world if not the planet itself. No one knows exactly what to expect. People are afraid, even those who are reluctantly afraid or skeptical.

How do you avoid the fear of this doomsday prediction or the next prediction of doom?

Keep in mind this is not the first time doom, apocalypse, Armageddon the end of the world, has been predicted. Every time the century changes, since people started using a calendar, there have been big upsets over the changing of the date. Predictions are usually about the date, the sequence of numbers or something to do with how the planets are moving in the universe around our own planet.

Look up past doomsday predictions Read and learn about them and see how much they have in common with current and future doomsday predictions. It's easy to be afraid of change - that doesn't mean the world will end.

If you are concerned about a particular prediction, do your own research about it. Don't rely on second opinions, gossip and rumours. Find out yourself and decide what you do or don't believe.

Be skeptical. Don't believe in a prediction just because it made the news, got talked about in school, at work, on the bus ride home, etc. Being popular and talked about, doesn't make it true.

Watch out for people who see patterns and believe in doomsday predictions. You can work on any idea long enough and find some kind of pattern. Try it yourself. Or work backwards and disprove the current pattern or conspiracy theory leading to the end of the world and civilization as we know it.

Stop listening. Stop reading the websites, stop listening to theories or reading about patterns and predictions.

Be optimistic. Don't waste too much time upset about something that hasn't happened and may never happen. Even if we are doomed you can only do so much to be prepared. The rest of the time you could be enjoying your life. Don't waste your time being negative about something that's only a prediction after all.

Curiousity and Urban Exploration

I like to see how the world might look in the future. I like to see buildings, those which crumble, but mostly those that survive and remain standing. I like to see how our roads, and all of our great man-made achievements weather and get taken over by nature and time.

This is the same curiousity which drives me to be an urban explorer. Whether I'm in a city, a town or in the middle of nowhere something like a rusty nail, weathered bricks, or a unidentified object possibly used in pioneer days will lure me over for a better look and a photograph.

Originally posted to HubPages. Laura has been photographing historical, abandoned, and rural ruins in Ontario since getting her first digital camera in 2006.

Picture a sunny day, maybe it's Autumn when things have cooled off from summer, leaves are changing colour on the trees and (if you're Canadian) you have been making plans for family coming over and Thanksgiving dinner. It's nice to have a quiet day to yourself amid all the planning, people visiting, phone ringing... why not take make a quick, simple picnic and spread a blanket in the cemetery to eat lunch and read a book?

Cemeteries and graveyards are only as creepy as you make them. In fact, they are well landscaped with history and greenery. They are quiet places - great for bird watching, writing, solitude and picnics. Stop by for a visit, even if you don't have relatives there.

Cemnic - Picnic in a cemetery. Usually thought of as a large, well landscaped place but it could also be a family graveyard in a rural area, anywhere really.

A Few Links

• A Halloween Picnic: In a Graveyard! | Halloween Alliance

• Full Life, Good Death: Cemeteries and Picnics

• Road Trip: Picnic and a Movie at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery

How to Have a Cemetery Picnic

Pick a Location

Most cemeteries are considered public property so you should have no problem with access - this means you are not trespassing. However, cemeteries may have scheduled hours. The gates may be closed due to the lateness of the day or they may be closed one day a week for maintenance and groundskeeping.

In the cemetery itself, find a place where you can be peaceful, away from traffic and foot traffic. Pick a picture perfect spot, where the grass isn't dry and prickly and the trees aren't dropping twigs or insects upon you.

Bring a Few Things

Bring a blanket to sit on, especially if the ground is damp or freshly mowed. Bring an extra blanket to curl up in if you get chilly. The cemetery tends to have a lot of open area so it can be breezy. Dress for the weather. Bring an umbrella if you might get rained on.

Of course, you need the picnic itself. If you have a whole picnic basket with plates, glasses and cutlery, great. If not, pack all the supplies you will need, don't forget napkins.

Sandwiches are traditional picnic fare but you could pack up anything you like as long as it's won't slop outside of the containers you pack it into. Try to avoid anything which will leave a lot of crumbs. Birds and other critters may eat the crumbs but the groundskeeper may not want to encourage all the various wildlife to come around.

Drinks in bottles which you can re-cap are a good plan. Insects will be attracted to sweet drinks but you can keep them from bothering you if you keep everything sweet contained.

You can get a quick picnic by going to the counter where they have sandwiches and salads at the grocery store, or a bakery, etc. Grab a container of cottage cheese or any other extras you like. If you didn't already pack knives, forks, spoons and napkins you can pick them up there too.

Bring a bag for trash. Usually you can find trash bins at the cemetery, if not, take it with you and find another place to dispose of the trash.

Respect the dead and the sensibilities of anyone who may also drop by to visit.

Don't leave behind trash. Don't drink too much. If you smoke (you probably shouldn't) but don't leave cigarette butts anywhere. Anything and everything you bring with you should also leave with you. The only exception being something you brought for relatives/ ancestors buried there. My brother and I will leave my Grandparents a Tim Horton's coffee when we visit them.

You might bring a laptop to work in the quiet. You might bring a radio to listen to some music. Watch the sound level, you want to keep it respectful. If you bring animals keep them leashed and clean up after them, pick up the poo and don't let them pee on any gravestones.

Don't take or disturb the flowers and decorations left by other families. Some people may have left money even. Resist temptation.

If you're visiting with family and making an occasion of it, bring a camera and take photographs.

If you're visiting family graves take some time to think about them. Talk about them if you're with family - talk to them if you're alone.

As you sit there, or while you walk around, take note of names on the stones. This is your local history. The families who lived in your town, built houses and businesses and had families are all right there. You could find out more about some of those old family names if you have an interest in local history.

Day of the Dead

Likely you have heard about the Mexican Day of the Dead, November 1st and 2nd. Family and friends gather to pray for and remember those who have passed on. In Mexico it is a national holiday.

Private altars are built, honoring the deceased, using sugar skulls, marigolds. Favourite food and drink of the departed are prepared and brought for visiting the graves with these gifts. Possessions of the dead are also brought and left for them.

Tomb Sweeping Day

The Qing Ming Festival (more commonly known as Tomb Sweeping Day) is a traditional Chinese holiday celebrating the arrival of Spring and remembering ancestors. Families visit grave sites the month following the Lunar New Year and days before the Spring Equinox.

The burning of incense and paper after the grave has been swept and maintained. Family members bow in front of the tombstone with incense in their hands and placing the incense upright in the ground. This is how they pay their respects to the dead.

Specialty shops sell paper versions of material possessions. One can buy paper houses, paper servants, even paper cell phones. It is believed material objects like these will still be needed in the afterlife so these paper versions are brought by the families.

After the paper offerings are burned, the food is divided up between family members. It's traditional to bring a whole roast pig to be offered at the tombs. Other food brought includes whole steamed chicken, white/yellow sugar cakes, oranges and other fruits. Rice wine is poured on the ground for the dead.

This picnic at the cemetery is a happy occasion of remembrance.